Town Hall Meetings Set for University Strategic Planning Process

Issue Date: 
March 16, 2015

The University of Pittsburgh has begun a University-wide strategic planning initiative to lay the foundation for Pitt’s future over the next five years. 

In an effort to obtain broad input, members of the Pitt community are invited to attend at least one of three meetings, which will be facilitated by David DeJong, Pitt’s vice provost for academic planning and resources management:

Wednesday, March 18, Town Hall Meeting, 3-4:30 p.m., Alumni Hall, Connolly Ballroom

Thursday, March 19, Senate Plenary, 1-3 p.m., Alumni Hall, Connolly Ballroom

Friday, March 20, Town Hall Meeting, 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m., University Club, Ballroom A

In his recent statement on the planning process, Pitt Chancellor Patrick Gallagher noted, “The tremendous progress the University of Pittsburgh has achieved over the past two decades owes greatly to careful planning and a commitment to excellence. As we move forward, we have strong aspirations to build on this progress. We also face new challenges and opportunities stemming from our rapidly changing region and the global landscape of higher education. Thus we are embarking on a University-wide strategic planning initiative that will lay the foundation for our future as a great university.”

In preparing for the planning process, Pitt administration officials conducted a series of “environmental scans” with key University constituents on all five campuses. Four major themes emerged, each of which poses challenges and opportunities for the University. The four themes identified are value preservation, internal culture, technology, and diversity (in areas such as race, ethnicity, thought, background, perspective, and expertise).

The Chancellor’s senior leadership team and the University’s Council of Deans assessed the themes and, through their discussions, created a strategic planning framework that was presented to the Board of Trustees on Feb. 27. 

DeJong emphasizes that the framework is open to further modification pending input from the University community: “We want to ensure that the finalized framework benefits from the broad perspective of the community; I hope we get great turnouts at these events.”

Once further input from the University community is received through the town hall meetings and Senate Plenary, completion of the strategic plan is targeted for June 2015. Implementation is planned for fiscal years 2016 through 2020.

More detailed information on the planning process is available at pitt.edu/impact